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In various localities around the country this summer, cops have raided and shut down lemonade stands. The incidents get — and deserve — national attention as telling collisions between classic Americana and the senseless pettifogging that is increasingly the American Way. There should be an easy rule of thumb for when enforcement of a regulation has gone too far: when it makes kids cry.

Setting up a lemonade stand has always been the occasion for early lessons about the importance of hustle and perseverance, and some business basics — like location, location, location. It shouldn’t be the occasion for dealing with the unreasoning dictates of The Man.

Police in Coralville, Iowa, a few weeks ago conducted a sweep and shut down three lemonade stands, some within minutes of their opening. The offenders had started their renegade operations the weekend of an annual bike ride across the state. The town requires vendors to have a permit during the days of the event. None of the perps did, including one four-year-old girl who shamelessly made $4 before police intervened.

One mother said she could only laugh when the police told her the cost of a permit was $400. Uncomprehending, her kids cried. They figured only the inadequacy of their handmade signs could have made the city’s law enforcement want to put them out of business.

A Coralville civic eminence subsequently explained that the ordinance was in place to protect the health of the bike riders, who are apparently robust enough to bike 472 miles but might be felled by six ounces of lemonade.

In McAllen, Texas, two kids were shut down and their grandmother threatened with a fine on similar grounds. Audaciously, the youngsters started selling lemonade for 50 cents a cup in a park without a health permit or licensed food handlers to prepare or serve their lemony libation. Hoping only to fund the upkeep of their two hermit crabs, these two children had stumbled into a murky world way over their heads.

In Midway, Ga., three girls were told they needed a business license, peddler’s permit, and food permit to set up a lemonade stand on their front lawn. It might have taken all summer just to navigate the bureaucracy necessary to begin selling the lemonade. The chief of police explained why she had to act to protect the public from the unauthorized sale of the unknown substance purporting to be “lemonade”: “We were not aware of how the lemonade was made, who made the lemonade, of what the lemonade was made with.”

Chances are that it was made of the usual dangerous cocktail of lemon juice, sugar, and water. If children — or their parents — aren’t to be trusted to prepare lemonade, presumably people lured by the prospect of a cool drink on a hot day can calculate the risks on their own and take their pocket change elsewhere if they feel safe only with professional-quality product.

Invariably, the parents of illicit lemonade-stand vendors protest to the authorities, “But they’re just kids.” That should be a clinching, self-evident argument. But not when an unbending legalism is ascendant, and there’s a law for everything. It’s in this spirit that we pat down children in the security lines of airports. People in authority are afraid ever to be caught rendering commonsense judgments.

For now, the lemonade-stand crackdowns are a bridge too far. They usually bring cries of public outrage and embarrassed backpedaling from officials. So belly up to the lemonade stand — while you still can.

In various localities around the country this summer, cops have raided and shut down lemonade stands. The incidents get — and deserve — national attention as telling collisions between classic Americana and the senseless pettifogging that is increasingly the American Way. There should be an easy rule of thumb for when enforcement of a regulation has gone too far: when it makes kids cry.

Setting up a lemonade stand has always been the occasion for early lessons about the importance of hustle and perseverance, and some business basics — like location, location, location. It shouldn’t be the occasion for dealing with the unreasoning dictates of The Man.

Police in Coralville, Iowa, a few weeks ago conducted a sweep and shut down three lemonade stands, some within minutes of their opening. The offenders had started their renegade operations the weekend of an annual bike ride across the state. The town requires vendors to have a permit during the days of the event. None of the perps did, including one four-year-old girl who shamelessly made $4 before police intervened.

One mother said she could only laugh when the police told her the cost of a permit was $400. Uncomprehending, her kids cried. They figured only the inadequacy of their handmade signs could have made the city’s law enforcement want to put them out of business.

A Coralville civic eminence subsequently explained that the ordinance was in place to protect the health of the bike riders, who are apparently robust enough to bike 472 miles but might be felled by six ounces of lemonade.

In McAllen, Texas, two kids were shut down and their grandmother threatened with a fine on similar grounds. Audaciously, the youngsters started selling lemonade for 50 cents a cup in a park without a health permit or licensed food handlers to prepare or serve their lemony libation. Hoping only to fund the upkeep of their two hermit crabs, these two children had stumbled into a murky world way over their heads.

In Midway, Ga., three girls were told they needed a business license, peddler’s permit, and food permit to set up a lemonade stand on their front lawn. It might have taken all summer just to navigate the bureaucracy necessary to begin selling the lemonade. The chief of police explained why she had to act to protect the public from the unauthorized sale of the unknown substance purporting to be “lemonade”: “We were not aware of how the lemonade was made, who made the lemonade, of what the lemonade was made with.”

Chances are that it was made of the usual dangerous cocktail of lemon juice, sugar, and water. If children — or their parents — aren’t to be trusted to prepare lemonade, presumably people lured by the prospect of a cool drink on a hot day can calculate the risks on their own and take their pocket change elsewhere if they feel safe only with professional-quality product.

Invariably, the parents of illicit lemonade-stand vendors protest to the authorities, “But they’re just kids.” That should be a clinching, self-evident argument. But not when an unbending legalism is ascendant, and there’s a law for everything. It’s in this spirit that we pat down children in the security lines of airports. People in authority are afraid ever to be caught rendering commonsense judgments.

For now, the lemonade-stand crackdowns are a bridge too far. They usually bring cries of public outrage and embarrassed backpedaling from officials. So belly up to the lemonade stand — while you still can.

— Rich Lowry is editor of National Review.

A Classic example of why not to give some people any authority,..It goes right to their pointy little heads....

Now now, we know that you'd have handled this differently. A child setting up a lemonade stand, without union workers or collective farming techniques and keeping the profits for him/herself is obviously a parasitical capitalist counterrevolutionary. A bullet to the back of the head after a show trial is more your speed, right?

Now now, we know that you'd have handled this differently. A child setting up a lemonade stand, without union workers or collective farming techniques and keeping the profits for him/herself is obviously a parasitical capitalist counterrevolutionary. A bullet to the back of the head after a show trial is more your speed, right?

LEGEND: Red = Town has previously shut down kid-run concession stands. Yellow = Town says kid-run concession stands are illegal unless the kids obtain at least one city permit. Green = Town permits kid-run concession stands without requiring any permits.

August 1, 2011 – Police officers in Coralville, Iowa, ordered at least three different sets of children to quit selling lemonade during the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa unless they first got a vendor’s permit and a health inspection. This is the first known example of a coordinated set of shutdowns at a single time.

July 17, 2011 – Police in Appleton, Wisconsin inform children that despite legally selling lemonade and cookies in their front yard during an annual city festival for the past six or seven years, a new city ordinance bans these sales in order to protect licensed vendors from competition.

July 15, 2011 – Cops in Midway, Georgia shut down a lemonade stand some kids were running in their own front yard, saying the kids had to obtain a peddler’s license, a food license, and pay $50 per day for a temporary business permit.

February 26, 2011 – In a separate incident, Savannah, Georgia, determines that city ordinances require an end to 40 year tradition of Girl Scouts selling cookies outside the historic home of the organization’s founder.

November 15, 2010 – Politician in New York sics police on 13-year-olds for selling cupcakes.

August 19, 2008 – New York City Police close lemonade stand operated by 9- and 10-year old, demanding they first obtain permits – which the children subsequently requested and were denied.

July 19, 2008 – The Mayor of Claremont, California, ordered the closure of a Girl Scout Cookie stand. Afterward, the City Council proposed that all “solicitors” in the city – specifically including Girl Scouts – must have a permit before going door-to-door. After an initial furor, the ordinance passed.

August 3, 2005 – 11- and 9-year-old selling lemonade on Salem Common in Massachusetts are ordered to shut down after nearby sausage vendor complains to police that they were negatively affecting his business.

January 6, 2005 – 10-year-old in Miami Beach, Florida, told the city would not issue her a permit to sell lemonade to raise funds for disaster relief.

August 14, 2004 – St. Louis city health commissioner demands shut down of 10- and 12-year-olds’ lemonade stand for lack of proper licenses and “unsafe ice cubes.”

July 13, 2004 – Despite having a permit from one city department in Las Cruces, New Mexico, three sisters were forced to close their front-yard drink stand.

August 27, 2003 – St. Paul, Minnesota’s Office of Licenses, Inspections and Environmental Protection shut down a seven-year-old’s drink stand because she had not obtained a $60 license.

June 13, 2003 – Law enforcement officials in Naples, Florida, shut down stand selling lemonade and cookies without city license.

July 23, 1990 – 13-year-old drink vendor shut down by city officials in Ojai, California, for lack of city permits. When he finally got all the necessary licenses, he was able to put what he learned into practice – by calling city officials to shut down other kids who were selling lemonade without a license.

HAS YOUR CITY TAKEN A POSITION ON KID-RUN CONCESSION STANDS? LET US KNOW AND WE’LL ADD IT TO THE MAP!

Note that in a couple of cases, licensed vendors used the police to shut down unlicensed competitors. This is what is known as "Rent Seeking", where a private business uses the power of the state to restrict competition. For an example of what it looks like at the macro level, look at all of the big corporations that tacked onto supporting Obamacare.

We had planned to sell plates for the benefit of a friend of mine who is up to her neck in medical bills. The plan was to use some large barbeque pits at the city park to cook some pre sold plate and while cooking throw some onions on the fire to attract people at the park and intice them into buying a plate on the spot.

Well, we needed a venders permit, health permits, a permit to use the pits. A waiver for the burn ban. Our goal was to sell maybe 200-300 plates. The cost of the red tape and beauracracy to make this happen? Equivilant to 213 plates. What...the...fuck!

I am suggesting the possibility that GotNews.com might be a hoax or troll site making @#$% up. I based that comment on the PJMedia article I linked, whose description and quotes from the killer's FB...